November 2015 – Welcome to Joe Girard's page

Monthly Archives: November 2015

Commitment Weekend

November 29, 2015 Joe

It never occurred to me that the glare produced by the sheen on my bald pate served as a great target.

Most universities have a recruiting event called something like “Commitment Weekend.” It goes something like this: admitted students who have not yet accepted are invited onto campus for a few days. They get to attend real classes, live on campus with host students, visit with professors and advisors, and get the feel of campus. After a couple of days, the idea goes, the student makes the final commitment – “Yes, I want to attend here!”

By spring of his senior year, in 2006, our middle child had been admitted to (as I recall) some seven different colleges and universities, from coast to coast. He had not visited a single one. During spring break we squeezed in a quick visit to Harvey Mudd, an elite math, engineering and science school on the Claremont, CA campus – co-located with several other outrageously expensive private schools.

Our son, Mark, a habitual over-achiever, was insanely busy at the time. He carried AP level classes every hour of his school day; he was acting in theatre productions and traveling to compete on his high school’s drum line team. Why we wasted time to visit Mudd, which offered a paltry scholarship, is beyond me.

So it was to be some other school. I can’t even remember them all. We had a single remaining weekend when Mark could get away. Early April as I recall. That limited us to two schools to choose from: Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, PA; and Trinity University, in San Antonio, TX.

At the last possible moment we chose Trinity. Mark’s drum line team was in a competition in Greeley, CO on a Thursday, as I recall. The wonderful Audrey drove him down US-85, where we rendezvoused in Commerce City. I met them, my car packed ready to go, and off Mark and I went to DIA (Denver Internat’l Airport). We flew to Austin and drove the I-35 to San Antonio. [The over-worked Mark slept the whole way from Denver to San Antonio]. Inexpensive EconoLodge saved me a few dollars.

Friday morning began Commitment Weekend, or what Trinity calls “Trinity 360.” Mark would be taken away for the weekend, hosted by an upperclassman, and there would be parent activities for me. In fact, that very night the school was putting on a production of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” Cool, very cool. I knew some of the songs, but had never seen it. Starts at 7PM. I went to the ticket counter and it was sold out; but there would likely be no-shows. They’d open a waiting list at 6PM: first come, first served.

I quickly planned the rest of my day to be first in line.

After a couple of parent events (your child will be safe; San Antonio is a fun town; Trinity is in its own “bubble” within San Antonio, yeddah, yeddah – but I saw that Trinity is a wonderful and beautiful campus) I was off for the ultimate tourist trap: The San Antonio River Walk.

Trinity University is a lovely campus

First open to the public as a scenic path in 1941, the original San Antonio River Walk was one of the last of the Depression Era WPA projects. As such, it serves a dual purpose. First, it addressed repeated flooding of downtown by the San Antonio River; an upstream dam provided flood control. Second, a small diversion of flow through the downtown business district promotes tourism and commerce.

I’d seen it once before. Coincidently it had to do with another more historic event of 1941: the bombing of Pearl Harbor. My wife’s dad, Art, is a survivor of that attack. He was a Radio Man on the USS California that December morning in 1941. For the 60^th anniversary a reunion of survivors was held in nearby Fredericksburg, TX. How glorious it was for us to see these survivors recognized as heroes decades later; history buffs poured in from around the country! Escorting Art were his oldest son (Steve, Audrey’s brother), his oldest grandchild (Aaron, my son) and of course me.

The weather was brisk and cool, with occasional light showers. I caught a nasty cold at the close of the weekend ceremonies. Then we drove over to San Antonio, about an hour away, to see and experience some history.

Early in the afternoon I spent most of my dwindling energy touring the Alamo with Aaron. So, that evening, I didn’t really get a chance to fully appreciate San Antonio, or the River Walk. I did find a pharmacy that sold throat lozenges though. We all dined at a restaurant on “The Walk.”

Well, several years later I got another chance to “do the River Walk” — this time in good health and in good weather. Here is my one word evaluation: Overrated. The slightly longer evaluation: The water is dirty. The crowds are monotonously thick, white, and giggly. The few exceptions are dominated by military personnel due to all the bases located in and near San Antonio. It’s all dedicated to consumerism, with an evidently endless stream of pubs, shops and restaurants.

I grabbed a walking map and made it a goal to speedily perambulate the River Walk’s entirety, along all the twists through an amazing tourist trap … and finish in time to see the play.

The San Antonio River Walk

It was a gloriously warm and sunny spring day. The Texas humidity wore me down a bit, but I wore comfortably light khaki pants and a weather-appropriate golf shirt. In my haste I had neglected to bring a cap or hat; this is a precaution I usually take to protect my bald scalp from the sun. No worry, I thought; I’ll make quick work of the famed “Walk.”

And so I did. I marched double-time up and down, through side-walk cafés and restaurants. Past pubs, high end restaurants, low brow restaurants and plenty of trinket shops. The River Walk’s serpentine path takes you underneath many bridges that carry downtown San Antonio automobile traffic overhead.

The under-structure of those bridges serve as a perfect protected place for many thousands of pigeons to nest, perch, mate and generally be a messy, noisy, disgusting nuisance.

It never occurred to me that the glare produced by the sheen on my uncovered and bald pate served as a great target. A pigeon poo target.

With an audible splat that tickled my scalp, I knew immediately what had happened. I had been crowned! Just ahead was an Irish-themed pub. I ducked in, went immediately to the men’s restroom and cleaned the mess off my dome as best I could.

The successful target practice cost me precious minutes. Triple-time speed marching the rest of “The Walk”, I made it back to my rental car and zoomed back up McAllister Freeway (US-281) to Trinity University campus.

Arriving at the lobby and box office outside Trinity’s Laurie Auditorium right at 6PM I was able to get my name at the top of the standby list for a ticket. I had an hour to wait. I decided to stay in the lobby, strolling casually around looking at the many fine pictures showing local history and displaying the talent of local artists. Gradually the lobby filled with dozens, then hundreds, waiting for the auditorium doors to open … or their name to be called. I kept walking around and around the lobby– doing several 360s, if you will – always keeping my face to the pictures on the wall, and my back to the swelling crowd.

Shortly after 7PM my name was called. I strolled through what remained of the throng, purchased my ticket, and found a fine single seat. It was about two-thirds of the way back, one or two seats in from the left side aisle.

Almost immediately I thought that I recognized the nearly bald, well-groomed, slightly stocky man seated directly in front of me. No, it couldn’t be him. He’s a bit shorter than I thought.

The play production was far, far better than I had expected. Like many musicals, the plot is silly, but – if they’ve survived this long – the music, singing and dancing are phenomenal.

As intermission approached I resolved to stay seated so that I could get a good look at the gentlemen in front of me as he arose and left his seat for a few minutes of leg stretching. Until then he seemed to be enjoying himself, just like a normal human being, although reservedly so.

Immediately after the final Act One number, the lights came on. People slowly got up to aimlessly mill about. Is it him?

Yes. I could not believe it. Karl Rove was sitting right in front of me! In the spring of 2006, as the chief political advisor to President George W. Bush, Mr. Rove was certainly one of the most powerful political figures in the world.

I went out to the lobby for a possible closer look. There he was(!), chatting casually with a small group of folks (Friends? Admirers? Protectors from riff-raff like me?). It was certainly Mr. Rove.

I did not muster the gumption to introduce myself. But, rather, I stood a few feet away and slowly turned myself in place, round and round, multiple 360s, whistling softly and further admiring the pictures and architecture of this fine building…sneaking a good peek once per revolution. He probably thought I was a stalker.

The rest of the play went as the first act. Mr Rove directly in front of me. Each of us enjoying the production immensely, joining in a standing ovation for the cast at the play’s conclusion.

I couldn’t wait to get to my hotel room. I had to clean off that slightly “icky” feeling you get from carrying a layer of dried sweat all over your skin for several hours. Plus I wanted to give the top of my head a more thorough scrubbing. It seemed like a very long time for the crowd to thin out enough for me to leave, and also for the parking lot to clear out.

The first thing I did after the door to my hotel room closed was take off my shirt. As I put my hands on the back of my collar I felt something that was not at all like the lovely fabric of my golf shirt. What I felt was a mixture of crusty and gooey. And thick.

Holy Crap! Most of the pigeon poo had splashed off my head and run down onto my shirt! That must have been one very well-fed pigeon!

I thought of all of those 360s I had slowly turned, my back toward the nice people visiting Trinity University, … and I was showing them a big fat blob of pigeon poo!

And that is a Trinity-360 that will probably never be duplicated.

Here’s to commitment. And here’s a commitment I recommend: if you ever stroll outdoors where there are overhead structures … wear a hat!

Peace

History, Sports

Morton: Hart to Smith

November 6, 2015 Joe

By 1950, the effervescent consumption potential of the world’s largest single national economy — the United States economy — had been restrained like over-carbonated champagne in a bottle for two decades. At first the role of cork was filled by The Great Depression, then the Second World War, and finally, by massive demobilization of the armed forces, and conversion of industry from war to a peace time economy.

That cork was creeping out, the bubbly about to spew forth. One way that was beginning to occur was manifest in the strong desire to live outside of the urban jungles; to move outside of the cramped, dirty confines of cities like New York, Chicago, St Louis. And yet, not move so far away that they couldn’t commute to the jobs that stayed in the cities … that is, commute via that great symbol of personal freedom of the era: the automobile.

In metropolitan areas where open available spaces were relatively close, brand new planned suburban communities sprang up in land that was previously agricultural, or wooded, or simply empty. The prime example of this was the Levittowns built by the Levitt Company in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Some large cities had established communities – usually small simple towns or hamlets – that were only close enough to be suburbs when highways and expressways were built to ease motor transportation to and from the cities.

Welcome to Morton Grove (Illinois)

One of these towns was Morton Grove, Illinois, located some 14 miles or so North-northwest from Chicago’s central Loop. The Eden’s Expressway – which was soon incorporated into the Interstate Highway system as I-94 a few years later – ran north across Cook County, and by 1951 connected Morton Grove to Chicago.

In the decade of the 1950s the population of Morton Grove more than quintupled, from about 4,000 to over 20,000 by 1960. I was one of those “newcomers”; so were my parents, soon followed by two sisters. Just a few months before my birth, in September 1956, my parents bought a humble, tiny ranch home in one of those planned neighborhoods. It was my first home, my sisters’ first home, and the first home my parents owned.

Morton Grove’s population has remained relatively flat since then; I suppose we are part of the reason for that too. With a fourth child now in tow, we moved at Christmastime, 1962, to a suburb of Milwaukee.

The area that would become Morton Grove was first settled by whites of European descent in the 1830s by Germans and English. The population remained low, about a hundred or so, until 1872, when a spur of the Milwaukee Road Railroad came, thanks to the vision of New York businessman and financier, Levi Parsons Morton. The grateful residents named their locale after him.

[Morton would go on to serve as Vice President of the country, getting elected in 1888 with president Benjamin Harrison. Oddly, Morton would be much better remembered than he is – even better than the town that bears his name – had he accepted an earlier offer to run for Vice President with James Garfield, in 1880. For, in September 1881 Garfield was killed by deluded assassin Charles Guiteau. Morton would have ascended to serve as 21^st president; instead it was Chester Arthur.]

After the railroad came, the Morton Grove area began to attract a few more settlers, and commercial businesses, including the Poehlmann Brothers greenhouse company. They achieved worldwide attention and acclaim when their Poehlmann Rose won First Prize at the 1904 World’s Fair, in St Louis. This would not be the first star Morton Grove sent to St Louis.

The community had grown to about 500 when it was formally incorporated as a municipality, the Village of Morton Grove, in 1895.

____________________________

A couple years before I arrived, another lad moved to Morton Grove, adding to its ’50s boom. James “Jim” Warren Hart was born just north of Chicago, in Evanston, in 1944. His father died when he was only seven. His mother remarried and they moved in with his stepfather in nearby Morton Grove. A bit on the small side for a football player, his stepdad encouraged him to give it a try – even forcing him out of the car on one occasion to partake in a junior football skills competition. Jim first started playing football as a freshman at Morton Grove’s high school, Niles West. A competitive athlete, Jim earned letters in baseball and track, although, conspicuously, not in football.

Undeterred, Southern Illinois University offered him a scholarship to play football. A small school that competed in lower divisions at the time, Jim was their quarterback for most of the years 1963-65, amassing, at that time, a school record 3,780 passing yards.

Coming from a small school, playing a short, weak schedule — and with a losing record — it was no surprise that Jim was undrafted by any National Football League team. He signed a contract to try out with the nearby Saint Louis Cardinals.

Jim Hart, St Louis Cardinals (Displayed under the Fair Use Doctrine).

In sports, it is as near a certainty as possible that undrafted free agents don’t make the team in the NFL, especially at quarterback. Jim made the team.

___________________________

Jackie Smith was born in 1940, in southern Mississippi, in tiny Columbia (thirteen years later Walter Payton was born there). As a boy, his family moved a few miles south, across the state line to Louisiana, to another small obscure town, Kentwood, LA.

It was at Kentwood High School that Jackie ran track; he began trying out for football as a sophomore. Due to injuries, his entire high school football career amounted to a mere five games. Most of the time, he admitted later, his play was so goofy that the other teams never knew what he was doing. He didn’t learn any fundamentals of the game.

He was recruited to run track at Northwestern Louisiana State University (now Northwestern State University). They could only offer him a half scholarship. If he played football too, he could get a full scholarship. So he played football.

He did not have an impressive college career, but he displayed enough speed and determination that he impressed a Saint Louis Cardinals scout. They took a chance and drafted him in the 10^th round in 1963. 10^th round draft choices have as much chance of making the team as an undrafted free agent. Jackie made the team.

________________________________________________

By 1967, Jim Hart had worked up from sixth string to starting quarterback for the Cardinals. Jackie Smith was the regular tight end. Two unheralded athletes, with unimpressive football backgrounds, competing at the highest level of football.

Jackie Smith, St Louis Cardinals (Displayed under the Fair Use doctrine)

For eleven seasons they played together, putting up electrifying numbers. During this period they helped transform the game of football. With contemporaries like quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath, and other tight ends like Mike Ditka and John Mackey, they showed how exciting and entertaining a more wide-open style of offensive football could be.

Unfortunately, Saint Louis often had poor talent teams in that era, but with a wide-open air attack that thrilled fans (they were then known as the “Cardiac Cards”) the league saw what football could be. At that time receivers were mauled at the line of scrimmage, their legs often cut from under them at the line. Quarterbacks were regularly severely roughed well after the ball was thrown. Tight ends were for blocking.

Jackie Smith was strong enough and fast enough to block linemen and linebackers. Yet with his track speed he could get open, and with his soft hands he could catch passes. With his physical and mental toughness he punished defensive backs who tried to tackle him. This is the prototype of tight ends we know 40 and 50 years later, but it wasn’t always like that.

For three successive magical seasons, 1974-76, under head coach Don Coryell and his “Air Coryell” approach, the Cardinals won 10, 11 and 10 games; at that time the regular season was only 14 games. Still, the Cardinals only made the playoffs two of those seasons, and never won a playoff game with either Hart or Smith on the roster.

Jim Hart was inducted to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. He was a four-time All Star and NFL Offensive Player of the year, in 1974.

Jackie Smith is in the NFL Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the St Louis Walk of Fame. He was a five-time All Star.

If and when you watch a football game these days, and you see receivers getting open off the line, tight ends catching passes, when you see a defensive holding call on a receiver, when you see a roughing-the-passer call, know that this goes back to the Smith-Hart era, and other similar brave players of the ‘60s and ‘70s, who showed how fun and exciting a wide-open game could be – even when they got physically punished for doing it. It wasn’t until later that rules were changed to protect players and promote this more exciting style of football.

_______________________

I guess if there’s a moral it’s that your past doesn’t define your future. And anyone – anyone – can change the trajectory of history. Sports can be a great metaphor for life that way.

A corollary is that when choosing teammates, when hiring to fill a position, — and you have the long term in mind — choose for potential and heart, not for how impressive the resume looks now.

If there’s a second moral, I guess it’s that Americans’ appetites for excitement and freedom in life (cars, travel, suburbs) are reflected in their desire for excitement, creativity and freedom in sports, however they choose to enjoy them.

Wishing you peace and bravery. If you can have only one, pick bravery.

Cheers,

[1] Jim Hart went back to Southern Illinois for several years to serve as Athletic Director, after a short career as a sportscaster. He remains married to his wife, his college sweet”hart”, for nearly 50 years.

[2] At the time of his retirement, Jackie Smith was the NFL’s all-time leading receiver for tight ends. He was only the third tight end inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, after Ditka and Mackey. He’s led a quiet retirement, and started a small business building one-man fishing boats.

[3] This essay is a (very rambling) response to Adam’s comment to an earlier essay: Week in New England, and a Quandary

[4] The Cardinals moved to Arizona in 1988. The current NFL franchise in St Louis is the St Louis Rams.

[5] Morton Grove lies within Niles Township, and is/was part of the township’s school district.

Guest Essay, History, Politics

Dewey felt Bluey

November 3, 2015 Joe

When Dewey Felt Bluey (And Harry Didn’t)

November 3, 1948 – 67 years-ago today, President Harry Truman boards his train at St Louis Union Station, and is handed a copy of the Chicago Tribune, bearing the headline, DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.

Probably the most famous election headline ever — Dewey Defeats Truman, 1948

As the incumbent President, Truman covered more than 22,000 miles, making 271 speeches in his “whistle-stop” election campaign. But FDR’s previous Vice-President, Henry Wallace, had decided to enter the Presidential race on the Progressive ticket. And Democratic Governor, Strom Thurmond (SC), was running on the “State’s Rights” ticket, also known as the Dixiecrats. So with the party divided into factions, most polls and political pundits were predicting an easy Dewey victory. As a U.S. District Attorney, and later as special prosecutor, Dewey came to prominence by his pursuit of organized crime figures, Dutch Schultz and “Lucky” Luciano, as well as white-collar crime figures, including sending the former President of the New York Stock Exchange to prison. [editor’s note: Take that, current DOJ).

For those of us not alive at the time, it might be hard to understand, but Thomas Dewey was the American Hero of his day, considered second only to Charles Lindbergh in popularity. Several movies, and a top radio show of the day,”Gang Busters”, were modeled after his career. Having been the Governor of New York since 1943, he had been the Republican nominee in the previous election, which had been FDR’s narrowest victory.

After voting in the city of Independence, MO, the Truman family spent the night in Excelsior Springs, where Harry went to bed early. Based on the results available at that time, Truman assumed he would lose.

Editors of the Chicago Tribune assumed the same, and with their regular staff on strike, the first-edition deadline was even earlier. Managing editor J. Loy “Pat” Maloney had to make the headline call, and he relied on the record of Arthur Sears Henning, the paper’s longtime Washington correspondent. Henning said Dewey would win. When they realized their mistake, the papers were recalled, but it’s estimated 150,000 made it into circulation, including those headed to St Louis.

_________________________________________________________________________

John Sarkis posts regularly at the Facebook page for “St. Louis Missouri. History, Landmarks & Vintage photos”
John is a native Saint Louisan, is retired, and now lives in Kirkwook, Missouri, a suburb of Saint Louis.

Editor’s further notes: I know about the fractured ticket, the Dixiecrats and Dewey’s “Rock Star” status. However, the strike at the “Trib” makes the story of the headline more understandable. — JG